I. Field of the Invention
The present invention can be generally classified in U.S. Class 208, subclasses 73, 91, 86, 52, 55, 156, 85, 88, 251, and 67; and International Class C10G, subclasses 11/18, 51/02, 25/00, and 51/04.
II. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,434,044 to L. E. Busch, P. W. Walters and O. J. Zandona (attorney docket 6107BUS); U.S. Pat. No. 4,525,268 to D. F. Barget (attorney docket 6107CUS); U.S. Pat. No. 4,569,753 to L. E. Busch, P. W. Walters, and O. J. Zandona (attorney docket 6107NUS); U.S. Pat. No. 4,894,141 to L. E. Busch, P. W. Walters, and O. J. Zandona (attorney docket 6107OUS) all teach the treatment of carbometallic oils containing high amounts of carbon and metals by contacting with fluidized solid sorbent materials in a first contactor, then cracking under short contact times with zeolite catalyst to produce hydrocarbon products in the transportation fuel ranges. The cracking of carbometallic oils, particularly by the RCC.RTM. heavy oil conversion process is taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,347,122; 4,341,624; 4,414,098; 4,431,515; and 4,444,651. Sorbent contacting is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,427,539 to L. E. Busch and G. O. Henderson (attorney docket 6175AUS), and also in U.S. Pat. No. 4,513,093; 4,469,588; and 4,263,128.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,951,781 to Owen cracks SDA raffinate plus hydrogen contributors (CH.sub.4, C.sub.2 H.sub.6, CH.sub.3 OH, etc.) to produce gasoline, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,640 to Vizner (Texaco) vacuum distills a topped crude and solvent refines the resulting virgin vacuum gas oil which is then catalytically cracked, and also deasphalts vacuum resid product from the vacuum distillation and passes the deasphalted vacuum resid to catalytic cracking.
Solvent deasphalting (extraction of asphalts from heavy petroleum stocks) is a well-known petroleum process and is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,951,781 to Owen (Mobil); U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,023 to Yan (Mobil); U.S. Pat. No. 3,972,807 to Uitti (UOP); U.S. Pat. No. 3,975,396 to Bushnell (Exxon); U.S. Pat. No. 3,981,797 to Kellar (UOP); U.S. Pat. No. 3,998,726 to Bunas (UOP); U.S. Pat. No. 4,017,383 to Beavon (Ralph M. Parsons); U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,512 to Dugan (Exxon); U.S. Pat. No. 4,101,415 to Crowley (Phillips); U.S. 4,125,458 to Bushnell (Exxon); and numerous others. Specific proprietary processes include the SOLVAHL solvent deasphalting process licensed by Institute Francais de Petrole, the low-energy deasphalting process licensed by Foster Wheeler, U.S.A., shown schematically in FIG. 1. Deasphalting processes also include the ROSE supercritical fluid technology licensed by Kerr-McGee Corporation.
Lube oil processes (FIG. 3) are commonly licensed by Texaco Development Company and Mobil Research and Development Corporation using a zeolite-based catalyst to reduce the pour point of the oil by removing waxy components and thereafter hydrotreating in a second reactor to stabilize the dewaxed oil. Exxon licenses the Exol N extraction process for selective extraction of raw lube stocks by extraction followed by treater tower in which solvent is recovered from both extract and raffinate phases by flashing and stripping with gas. Extraction solvent water content is adjusted to optimize results. (Each of these processes is shown in the Refining Handbook, November 1992, published by Hydrocarbon Process magazine.)